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I always have to be the one to think?” Marcia snapped. “Get an idea for yourself for once!” She knew this was unfair, but by this time she was in as bad a fuss as Mum.
    Here the record got as far as “ Who shall we click to click him away? ” and stuck. “ Who shall we click, who shall we click…”
    Marcia raced for the record and took it off. Simon raced among the stampede toward Chair Person and hit him with the unwrapped wand. Again nothing happened. Chair Person pushed a boy with a leg brace off the end chair and sat down. Auntie Christa said angrily, “This is too bad! Start the game again.”
    Marcia put the stylus down on the beginning of the record a third time. “I’d better stay and do this,” she said. “You go and search the box—quickly, before we get landed with Table Person and Jelly Person as well!”
    Simon sped to the table and started taking things out of the conjuring box—first the flags, then the dripping hat with the crystal ball in it. After that came a toy rabbit, which was perhaps meant to be lively when it was fetched out of the hat. Yet, for some reason, it was just a toy. None of the things in the box was more than just wet. Simon took out a sopping leather wallet, three soaking packs of cards, and a dripping bundle of colored handkerchiefs. They were all just ordinary. That meant that there had to be a way of stopping things getting lively, but search as he would, Simon could not find it.
    As he searched, the cracked music stopped and started and the table stamped one leg after another in time to it. Simon glanced at the game. Chair Person had found another way to cheat. He simply sat in his chair the whole time.
    â€œI’m counting you out,” Auntie Christa kept saying. And Chair Person went on sitting there with his smashed-hedgehog chin pointing obstinately to the ceiling.
    Next time Simon looked, there were only two chairs left beside Chair Person’s and three children. “We’ll have tea after this game,” Auntie Christa called as Marcia started the music again.
    Help! thought Simon. The wobbling, climbing jelly was half out of its bowl, waving little feelers. Simon turned the whole box out onto the jigging table. All sorts of things fell out. But there was nothing he could see that looked useful—except perhaps a small wet pillbox. There was a typed label on its lid that said “DISAPPEARING BOX.” Simon hurriedly opened it.
    It was empty inside, so very empty that he could not see the bottom. Simon put it down on the table and stared into it, puzzled.
    Just then the table got livelier than ever from all the liquid Simon had emptied out of the conjuring box. It started to dance properly. The tablecloth got quite lively, too, and stretched itself in a long, lazy ripple. The two things together rolled the hat with the crystal in it across the tiny, empty pillbox.
    There was a soft WHOP. The hat and the crystal were sucked into the box. And they were gone. Just like that. Simon stared.
    The table was still dancing and the tablecloth was still rippling. One by one, and very quickly, the other things from the conjuring box were rolled and jigged across the tiny pillbox. WHOP went the rabbit, WHOP the wand, WHOP-WHOP the string of flags, and then all the other things WHOP WHOP WHOP , and they were all gone, too. The big box that had held the things tipped over and made a bigger WHOP . And that was gone as well, before Simon could move. After that the other prizes started to vanish WHOP WHOP WHOP . This seemed to interest the tablecloth. It put out a long, exploring corner toward the pillbox.
    At that Simon came to his senses. He pushed the corner aside and rammed the lid on the pillbox before the tablecloth had a chance to vanish, too.
    As soon as the lid was on, the pillbox was not there anymore. There was not even a whisper of a WHOP as it went. It was just gone. And the tablecloth was just a